Saad Eskander (Photo: Flickr/americanlibraries)

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For years, Afghanistan was the “forgotten war,” the forgotten country — even as American soldiers walked its ridges and alleys.

Now, that forgotten country, incredibly, is Iraq.

120,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq. Combat troops are supposed to be out by next August. But Iraq’s fate and future is still unclear.

Saad Eskander was there in the chaos after the U.S. invasion, as director-general of Iraq’s National Library and Archives. He’s stayed through car bombs, mortar fire, plunder, kidnapping, assassinations and — maybe — rebirth.

This hour, On Point: Iraq now, with Saad Eskander.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Joining us first from Baghdad is Rod Nordland, foreign correspondent for The New York Times.

Saad Eskander joins us in our studio. He is director-general of the Iraq National Library and Archives. A former fighter in the Kurdish resistance movement, he was born in Baghdad and educated in London, where he received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He returned to Iraq in 2003 to take leadership of the devastated National Library.

More links:

Saad Eskander speaks today at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, which has posted this biographical note about him.

In 2006 and 2007, Eskander wrote an online diary for the British National Library on his experiences rebuilding the Library in the midst of Baghdad’s brutal sectarian violence.

The Guardian profiled him earlier this year in a piece titled “Books, tears, and blood.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, left, and Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. (AP)

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Dire warnings, made public today, by the top U.S. general in Afghanistan. “More Forces or ‘Mission Failure,’” is the headline in The Washington Post. Taliban victory. U.S. defeat.

My guests today say listen carefully, past the headline. Daniel Ellsberg, in 1971, leaked the Pentagon Papers that changed the country’s understanding of the Vietnam War.

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s right-hand man at the State Department, called the case for war in Iraq a hoax.

This hour, On Point: The push for more troops in Afghanistan.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Daniel Ellsberg joins us from Berkeley, Calif. He had been a top-level defense analyst at the Defense Department and State Department and was working as an analyst at the RAND Corporation in 1971, when he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. He served as a rifle platoon leader in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1950s. He is the subject of a new documentary called “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

Joining us from Williamsburg, Va., is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (U.S. Army-Ret.). He was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. A former director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia, he’s now a professor of national security studies at George Washington University and of government and policy at the College of William & Mary. He has been an outspoken critic of the George W. Bush administration and its case for the Iraq war.

Joining us from Berlin is George Packer, staff writer at The New Yorker. His article “The Last Mission” — about Richard Holbrooke, Afghanistan, and the ghosts of Vietnam — appears in current issue. His most recent book is “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq” (2005).
 

Iranians and Iraqis carry the coffin of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, shown in the picture, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders, in a funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran, on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2009. Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim died Wednesday in Iran, the country that was long his powerful ally. (AP)

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What will Iraq look like after the American troops are gone? After the hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars and the loss of thousands of lives of U.S. servicemembers, could Iran, and not the U.S., be the dominant influence in Iraq? Will security deteriorate?

These questions and more have been raised lately — after a massive bombing of two key ministries in downtown Baghdad, and with the number of Iraqi civilian deaths back up in August.

The initial American “democratic ideal” of Sunni-Shi’ite co-operation was always tricky. Now, in advance of next year’s elections, Iraqis themselves are asking what kind of country they want.

This Hour, On Point: Iraq without the “American friends” — in a dangerous neighborhood.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jacki Lyden, guest host

Guests:

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill. He has been serving in Baghdad since April 2009. Prior to his posting in Iraq, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

David Ignatius, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post. He is also co-moderator of the “Post Global” forum. His latest column on Iraq is called “Behind the Carnage in Baghdad.”

Steven Lee Myers, Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times. He has been covering the new challenges to the current Iraqi leadership.

Vice President Joe Biden awards the Bronze Star to Maj. Lisa Garcia during a welcome home ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Biden welcomed home the XVIII Airborne Corps from Iraq after their second deployment. (AP)

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U.S. troops were back in the spotlight in recent days: with the new President in Baghdad; greeted home by Vice President Joe Biden at Fort Bragg; carried from a troop transport at Delaware Air Force Base in a coffin, the first homecoming of American war dead from Iraq or Afghanistan ever to be seen in the media.

None of these comings and goings are new to American military families. For years now, they have hugged and cried and waved goodbye and waited. Borne the daily burden of two long wars. We’re checking in with them today.

This hour, On Point: Military families in the time of long wars.

You can join the conversation. Is this your story? Your neighbor’s story? At home, doing double-parenting, with a husband or wife away, for a long time, at war?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Rebekah Sanderlin. Her husband is a master sergeant in the Army, stationed at Ft. Bragg. He got back home from his last tour at the end of January. She’s mother of Bo, 4, and daughter Rudy, 7 months old. She writes the column and blog “Operation Marriage” for the Fayetteville Observer. She is also an occasional essayist for NPR.

Kelly Wright. Her husband Whit is a major in the Army, stationed at Fort Bragg. He has served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He returned from his last deployment a year ago. She’s mother of Hadley, who turns 3 next weekend, and is pregnant with another daughter, due in July — three weeks before her husband ships out. She spent 5 of her 7 years as a military spouse writing the “Home Front” column for the Fayetteville Observer.

Fadia Champlain. Her husband Lucas is an army specialist and currently serving his first tour in Iraq. Her son Martin, a sergeant in the Army, is now in Afghanistan, on his fourth tour. Both are based out of Fort Drum. She’s mother of Martin, 25, Cassie, 24, and Adam, 10. Fadia works with the base’s “Family Readiness Group.”

We asked our guests if they’d share personal photos with us, and they graciously sent the pictures here, so that our listeners can put a human face on the stories they hear on the show today:

Rebekah Sanderlin and her kids, in a photo taken during her husband's most recent deployment.

Kelly Wright, her husband, and their daughter, at his homecomeing from his latest deployment.

Fadia Champlain and her husband.

Fadia Champlain's husband, Lucas, and son, Martin, at Martin's deployment.

Talk about awkward.

The United States and Iraq are negotiating a new legal framework for U.S. military operations in Iraq. A new “status of forces agreement.”

And Iraq’s prime minister stands up and says the negotiations aren’t working. That they’re at an impasse. That Iraq’s demands are unacceptable to the U.S. and U.S. demands are unacceptable to Iraqis.

What has the U.S. asked for? Fifty-plus bases. Immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and contractors. Control of Iraqi airspace.

Now Congress wants a say.

This hour, On Point: Commitments, sovereignty and military rights in Iraq.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Alissa J. Rubin, deputy Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times.

Vali R. Nasr. He is professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

James Dobbins. He is director of the RAND National Security Research Division’s International Security and Defense Policy Center. He was the Clinton administration’s special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo . He was George W. Bush administration’s first special envoy for Afghanistan and representative to the Afghan opposition in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Mahmoud Othman, independent Kurdish member of the Iraqi Parliament

We look at the meaning and uncertain milestone of 4,000 U.S. troops dead in Iraq.

Guests:

Tom Bowman, Pentagon correspondent for NPR.

Alissa Rubin, Deputy Baghdad Bureau Chief for the New York Times.

Anthony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Rosemary Palmer, mother of Lance Corporal Augie Schraeder who was serving in the Marine reserves when he was killed on August 3rd, 2005 and co-founder of Families of the Fallen for Change.

Ann Scott Tyson, Military and Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post.

Paul Kane, a Marine reservist, decorated combat veteran of Iraq and Harvard University’s Belfer Center.

Five years in, President Bush now says the Iraq war has brought the United States to the brink of a great strategic victory. Many others call the war the greatest strategic blunder in American history.

Either way, there are decisions to be made. If we should stay, how long? If we should go, how fast? How many trillions and lives to spend? How many years?

The questions are hot on the campaign trail. And hot right here.

This hour, On Point: five years in, we’ll go up to the minute on the great debate — when and how to leave Iraq.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Christopher Dickey, Middle East regional editor for Newsweek, his recent article for the magazine looked at the next five years in Iraq.

Brigadier General John Johns (U.S. Army – Ret.), a specialist in counterinsurgency and nation-building, he served 26 years as a combat officer, served eight years on the Army General Staff, and taught national security strategy for 14 years at National Defense University.

Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Five years ago today, the “shock and awe” bombardment was ending in Baghdad, and U.S. troopers were pouring over the border from Kuwait into Iraq.

They were not told to expect a five-year slog: longer, as Barack Obama now puts it, than World War I, longer than World War II, longer than the Civil War.

In this hour we’ll go to Iraq. To check in on Marines right now, still, in Fallujah. To talk with Iraqis about the realities they face every day in a shattered country. To ask what they, and we, dare hope. And must do.

This hour, On Point: five years on, inside Iraq.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Sudarsan Raghavan, Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post.

Jamie Tarabay, national correspondent for NPR, she was Baghdad bureau chief from 2005 until December 2007 and has covered the war since 2003.

Ashraf al-Khalidi, a Baghdad-based researcher, he has worked with several international institutions and writes for the news website IraqSlogger.

Mahmoud Othman, independent Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament.

Noha Agha, founder and president Nintu, LLC, a humanitarian and cultural assistance group in Iraq.

Pennsylvania Democrat Patrick Murphy is the only Iraq War veteran in Congress.

He can tell you all about driving into enemy fire in a Humvee without adequate armor; losing the battles for Iraqi hearts and minds; the strategic blunders of the Bush administration; the high price and pain of long deployments, and the 19 comrades who came home in body bags.

Murphy won a fierce battle for Congress against a Republican incumbent. Now, he’s speaking out about what when wrong in Iraq and his hopes for America.

This hour, On Point: Congressman Patrick Murphy.

-Jane Clayson

Guest:

Patrick J. Murphy, Democratic Congressman respresenting Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District. He served in Iraq in 2003-2004 as a captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. His new memoir is “Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress.”

In the glare of presidential campaign lights and stock market bonfires, it’s almost possible for the war in Iraq to disappear.

But not if you’re a soldier, or an Iraqi, or cutting the checks in Washington, or feeling the strain at the Pentagon.

Iraq’s Defense Minister says U.S. troops will be needed for another decade. John McCain says a hundred years if necessary. Top generals are wrangling over what to do this year.

This hour, On Point: we’re circling back to Iraq and asking how long until how many U.S. troops come home.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Lawrence Wilkerson, retired U.S. Army colonel, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, now professor of national security studies at William & Mary College.

Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Capt. Seth Moulton, U.S. Marines, special assistant to General David Petraeus. He is serving his fourth tour in Iraq.

Ned Parker, correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

It feels like we’ve seen this before: US troops make progress in Iraq, while Iraq’s political and ethnic divide appears as vast as ever.

And yet something real has happened on the ground: the terrible bloodletting brought on by the fall of Saddam has ebbed. Neighborhoods are quieter. And as promised, the first drawdown of US troops has begun.

The “surge” gets part of the credit. But this isn’t peace yet, the generals warn. Iraq’s civil war still simmers beneath the surface, and what happens when the Americans ease their grip on the streets is anyone’s guess.

This hour, On Point: The surge, and the day after the surge.

-Jane Clayson

Guests:

Damien Cave, Baghdad correspondent for The New York Times.

Conrad Crane, director of the U. S. Army Military History Institute at the U.S. Army War College.

Paul Hughes, retired U.S. Army colonel, now senior program officer at the United States Institute of Peace.

After World War II, some 8 million veterans came home and went to college on the GI Bill, helping create the American middle class. Now, the latest generation of vets — battle-tried in Iraq and Afghanistan — is coming home, and many are going to college.

They’ve got less help from Uncle Sam, but they are hitting campuses across the country, confronting term papers, parties, campus politics, and culture shock.

This hour, On Point: we hear from three Iraq vets, now all undergrads, about reentering civilian life on campus.

-Sheilah Kast

Guests:

Matt Stiner, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He’s now a senior at Oklahoma State University at Tulsa.

Talya Havice, an active duty Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Far East. She is now a sophomore at Harvard University.

David Hassan, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He is now in his first year at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Iraq has the world’s third largest proven reserves of oil, and they’re barely tapped. This week, the price of oil reached $82 dollars a barrel — the highest in history. And Alan Greenspan says in his new memoir that, at least for him, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was “largely about oil.”

Iraq’s ocean of oil is a source of endless speculation, maneuver, sectarian tension, war and conflict — inside Iraq and out — over who gets what and how. The oil companies are circling. The world is thirsty.

Up next, On Point: the lowdown on the oil of Iraq, and its endless spillover.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Amy Jaffe, energy expert and fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, former Middle East analyst at the State Department and CIA, he’s currently director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation and author of “Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire” (2005).

Issam Chalabi, Iraq’s minister of oil from 1987 to 1990.

Nathaniel Kern, president of Foreign Reports, a consulting firm providing political analysis for the oil industry.

Americans overwhelmingly say they oppose the war in Iraq, but the war in Iraq goes on.

So, where’s the antiwar movement?

Well, it’s all over — and nowhere. It’s in Congress, among Democrats and some Republicans. It was in the streets of Washington, D.C. this weekend, with a few thousand protestors chanting and marching. It was in the rhetoric in Iowa, at Senator Tom Harkin’s steak fry. But where’s the beef?

Last week belonged to Petraeus and Bush. Today, we hear from the antiwar crowd.

This hour On Point: Iraq war opposition, from the halls of Congress to the streets.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER antiwar coalition.

Tom Andrews, national director of the antiwar coalition Win Without War.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland.

Rep. Howard Coble, Republican from North Carolina.

Michael Crowley, senior editor at The New Republic and author of the recent New York Times Magazine artlicle “Can Lobbyists Stop the War?”.

The stated goal of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq was to create breathing room for political reconciliation in Baghdad. That has not happened.

But reporting to Congress this week, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are pushing for patience — a pullback, next year, of the surge, but an open-ended U.S. military commitment in Iraq.

Yesterday, they testified before the House. Today, they cross Capitol Hill.

This hour, On Point: Petraeus and Crocker before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Barry Posen, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology.

Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Roughly 120 people have died in sectarian violence since the bombing Wednesday in Baghdad that destroyed the golden dome of one of Shiite’s most holy shrines. Many worry this could be the spark that ignites an all-out civil war in Iraq.

Sunnis announced Thursday they would withdraw from talks to form a new government in protest of the transitional government’s failure to protect its mosques and offices. Today police and soldiers set up a daytime curfew in Baghdad.

Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times provides the latest from Baghdad.

Guest:

Borzou Daragahi is Baghdad correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.